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Horror stories from young Afghans at US hearing

File-In this detail of a courtroom sketch, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, center, is shown Monday, Nov. 5, 2012, during a preliminary hearing in a military courtroom at Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington state. An Afghan National Army guard who reported seeing a U.S. soldier outside a remote base the night 16 civilians were massacred in March said the man did not stop even after being asked three times to do so. The guard, named Nematullah, testified by live video from Kandahar, Afghanistan, on Friday Nov. 9, 201 during an overnight session for a hearing in the case against Staff Sgt. Robert Bales. At right is Investigating Officer Col. Lee Deneke, and at left is Bales' attorney, Emma Scanlan. (AP Photo/Lois Silver) TV OUT

During cross-examination of several witnesses, Bales' attorney John Henry Browne sought to elicit testimony about whether there might have been more than one shooter.

Dad, the police official, testified that he did not believe one soldier could have carried out the attacks, though he offered no evidence to support that opinion, and nearly all other testimony and evidence at the hearing pointed toward a single shooter.

One Army Criminal Investigations Command special agent testified earlier that several months after the massacre, she took a statement from one woman whose husband was killed. The woman reported that there were two soldiers in her room — one took her husband out of the room and shot him, and the other held her back when she tried to follow.

But other eyewitnesses reported that there was just one shooter, and several soldiers have testified that Bales returned to his base at Camp Belambay, just before dawn, alone and covered in blood.

A video taken from a surveillance blimp also captured a sole figure returning to the base.

The Afghan witnesses recounted the villagers who lived in the attacked compounds and listed the names of those killed. The bodies were buried quickly under Islamic custom, and no forensic evidence was available to prove the number of victims.

Prosecutors said that between the two attacks, Bales woke a fellow soldier, reported what he'd done and said he was headed out to kill more. The soldier testified that he didn't believe what Bales said, and went back to sleep.